Afternoon Drive withJoanne Joseph

Public Relations firm Bell Pottinger has gained an infamous reputation amongst South African's and the world at large for taking on the task of bolstering the image of the Gupta family. This job has since backfired in spectacular fashion.

On Thursday, the PR firm conceded that they have messed up, to put it bluntly.

What is it about South African politics? What is it about our discourse and conditions of our society that enables propaganda to succeed as fully as it did, prior to the Gupta leak emails expose, asks Eusebius McKaiser?

I think Zuma is a populist president. He has huge influence, especially in rural areas. I think the media struggles to communicate its message to those people. So people will be susceptible to propaganda in areas where they aren't exposed to enough information and where their loyalty runs deep. In a large part of the country there is no such thing as fake news, just popular news.